Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Jeremiah 7:23-28
Luke 11:14-23

Reflection:

My one command to them was this: Listen to my voice, then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Jeremiah 7:22

My reflection today is simply a question – do you know that God is speaking to you?

He is! But most often, our lives are so filled with noise – even good noise – that we can’t hear Him.

I realized recently that my whole ministry is based on this premise because my piano CDs are called “I Will Speak to My People.” And the title of my first book is “God Speaks to Ordinary People – Like You and Me.”

When I invited the Lord to take over my life over 30 years ago, by surrendering to the Holy Spirit, I began an amazing adventure where I learned that I could hear from God. Hearing from God is not just for mystics or religious, but for every one of us because we are God’s children, and He desires to converse with each of us.

Take some time this Lent to quiet yourself and sit with God. Ask Him a question and then listen for his answer. It’s true that He also speaks to us through nature, through music, through others, through Scripture, and in many other ways, but today I want to encourage you to begin having conversations with your heavenly Father (if you don’t already.) He is right there, in the quiet of your soul waiting for you.

Janice Carleton and her husband Jim live in Portland, OR and partner with Passionist Fr. Cedric Pisegna in Fr. Cedric Ministries. She is the mother of 4 grown children and grandmother of 6. Janice also leads women’s retreats and recently published her second book: God IS with Us. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.janicecarleton.com/ or email her at [email protected].

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9
Matthew 5:17-19

Reflection:

There are parallels between the Jewish Scriptural accounts of Moses’ leading his people to the brink of their occupation of the land God gives them—and the religiously motivated journey of the “Pilgrim/Separatists” who left England, stayed some years in Holland, and then went on to occupy the land they identified with religious freedom.

They both have charismatic leadership; they are fleeing persecution or a challenge to their worship of God; they have long, sacrificial journeys to endure before they arrive at their “land.”

Both the Jews and the Pilgrim Separatists have deep religious motivations. Moses reminds his people in today’s first reading:

Therefore, I teach you the statutes and decrees
as the LORD, my God, has commanded me,
that you may observe them in the land you are entering to occupy.

Moses makes it clear that they are accountable to God, and that their lives shall constitute the basis of a “great nation.”

The Pilgrim Separatists went to a land they would colonize in order to implement their “Purification” of the Roman and Anglican Christian faith their forebears had practiced but which they considered insufficiently reformed.

Later colonizing parties would introduce several of the religious strains that came from northern Europe (England, France, Spain), which would diminish the initial influence of the Puritans. These are the religious traditions that gave cover to the societies being planted in the New World.  By the time of Independence, the language of the Scriptures and the language of fidelity to God, Creator and Lawgiver, is an integral part of the first texts of the newly independent nation.

Yesterday, Super Tuesday of the Primary Balloting for the Presidency of this country, a large part of our nation had to choose among the candidates who ask our consent to govern as Chief Executive of the United States.

The question of “America’s greatness” was sloganized. Insult was rained on candidates by rivals and their opposition. Wealth was touted as the proof of virtue; exclusion was preached as national security.

Today’s reading from Deuteronomy reminds us, as it reminded the Jewish immigrants under Moses, and the Pilgrim immigrants under William Bradford, that we are accountable to God, whose Word we reflect on daily. Those of us who hold to the Christian faith in these United States must absorb the admonition of today’s first reading and consider it each day as we move toward the November elections:

Observe them [statutes and decrees] carefully,
for thus will you give evidence
of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations,
who will hear of all these statutes and say,
‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’

Fr. Arthur Carrillo, C.P.  is the director of the Missions for Holy Cross Province.  He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Scripture:

Daniel 3:25, 34-43
Matthew 18:21-35

Reflection:

Just a few weeks ago, Pope Francis published his first book as Pope, entitled The Name of God is Mercy (New York: Random House, 2016).  It was drawn from an extended interview the Pope had with the Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli and its entire focus is on God’s infinite mercy and forgiveness—a motif that has been characteristic of this Pope from his earliest years as a priest.  Several times the Pope refers to the parable of the unforgiving servant from Matthew’s Gospel (18:21-36) and that is the gospel selection we hear today at the Eucharist in the midst of our Lenten observance.

Of particular importance is the question of Peter that prompts Jesus to tell this parable.  Peter, who himself in the gospel account will stumble more than once, asks Jesus, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often must I forgive them?  As many as seven times?”  Jesus’ answer is astounding: “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.”  It is well known that in Jewish literature the number seven implies infinity.  Peter may have been proud of himself in posing such a generous limit to forgiveness— “seven times”!  But Jesus multiples the limit beyond infinity—there is, in fact, no limits to God’s forgiveness and that same spirit should be ours.  This is what Jesus drives home in the story he tells Peter. A servant is summoned to pay his debts to a King.  The debt is enormous, “10,000 talents.”  The first century Jewish historian Josephus notes that the total taxation that King Herod collected in a year was “ten thousand talents”.  Thus in the story Jesus tells, the servant owes something equivalent to the national debt!  He begs the king to give him more time to pay this off—probably a note of wry humor on Jesus’ part, given the impossibility of the servant ever being able to pay down this overwhelming debt.  But, instead, the extraordinarily generous king forgives the whole debt and the servant’s terrible burden is lifted!

But, of course, we know the rest of the story…  When this forgiven servant meets a fellow servant who owes him a very paltry amount (a “hundred denarii,” equivalent to a day’s wage) and also asks for some time to pay it back, instead of acting with mercy as the King had done, this servant reacts violently, choking his fellow servant and having the poor man thrown into prison.

The point of this parable is surely clear.  God’s mercy towards us is infinite and we can always ask him for forgiveness no matter how many times we have failed.  As Pope Francis has noted over and over, this is the heart of Jesus’ message, who in his healing and acts of forgiveness reveals to us “the human face of God’s mercy.”  And, we also learn that as followers of this Jesus, we, too, are to treat each other with mercy, forgiveness, and compassion.  As we pray in the Lord’s Prayer (Jesus’ parable evokes this prayer that he taught his disciples): “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Remembering this and acting on it is the grace we must pray for this Lent.

Fr. Donald Senior, C.P., is President Emeritus and Professor of New Testament at Catholic Theological Union.  He lives at the Passionist residence in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Scripture:

2 Kings 5:1-15ab
Luke 4:24-30

Reflection:

“When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury.  They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.”  In other words, we don’t like what he has to say so let’s take him out and kill him.  Sounds like something you might read on Facebook.

These words from today’s gospel are not warm, fuzzy or ambiguous.  The people of Nazareth just wanted Jesus dead.  I have not heard many sermons, homilies or speeches where the crowd reaction to a speaker was “let’s kill him”.  Most speakers do not want their words to end up in their own death.  Instead, some of our current politicians would be just as happy to stir up an audience to the point where they might want someone else or some group to be killed.  Like Jesus in Nazareth, our own Pope Francis certainly has curled some clerical toes in the Church and around the world with his words of mercy, kindness and pointed observations about corruption and inequality.

The Word of God does not always produce warm and comfy feelings.  In fact it often does and should do just the opposite.  This makes me wonder as I reflect on today’s reading.  Do I hear the Word of God as always comforting or do I sometimes find it extremely upsetting?  It’s another time in my life where I realize that when I think I have things all nicely figured out, I probably don’t.  If I am completely at ease, dare I say complacently proud, in my own version of Christianity, then I’m probably worshipping a false idol of my own making.

Today’s gospel is not easy.  A prophet may not be accepted in his own town.  I should not be comfortable in my own cozy, ideal and ritualized version of Nazareth, where we all think and believe alike and no one ever gets their feathers ruffled when they hear the Word of God.  Lent is a good time for me to reconsider my comfort level as a person who says, “I am a Christian.”

Terry McDevitt, Ph.D. is a member of the Passionist Family in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15
1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12
Luke 13:1-9

Reflection:

The Lord is kind and merciful?  (Ps 103)

The parable of the fig tree we hear on this 3^rd Sunday in Lent reminds us again of how God’s mercy extends to the whole of creation.  Mercy is bestowed on a lowly fig tree which hasn’t blossomed in three years as well as Moses and the Israelites as we hear in the first reading.  Oftentimes it is believed that when tragedy strikes, it is because someone has sinned and God is punishing us, thus no room for mercy!  This could be no further away from the truth.  God’s mercy extends to all of us today just as it did to the Galileans who came up against Pilate or the eighteen people killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them.  These people were all very human just like us and sinners as well.  God doesn’t hold our sins against us.

The Lord is kind and merciful!

We are called to shower that same mercy shown us onto others we encounter in our daily lives.  It behooves us to reflect on what mercy means to us so that we in turn can show that same mercy to others.  In our parish during this Lenten season we are being invited to share a brief reflection of how we have experienced the gift of mercy in a particularly acute way at some point in our life.  By taking the time to reflect and write this reflection on post-it notes available and place them on a white board to share with the rest of the parish, it is hoped that we will become more attentive to and more open to the gift of God’s merciful love in our lives, so that this love might fill us and create us anew.

As we continue on this Lenten journey, we celebrate the 1^st scrutiny with our catechumens.  We acknowledge that we are all in need of discerning what it is in our own life that needs to be freed from sin’s bondage.  Jesus’s love for us in spite of our sinfulness reminds us that we are called to recognize and forgive our brother or sister who has wronged us and ask forgiveness from those we have wronged.  This act of humility leads us to further growth in love and understanding of what it means to love as Jesus loves.

The Lord is kind and merciful!

Let us give thanks for this gift of mercy in our lives and commit ourselves to sharing that same mercy and kindness with others this day.

 

Theresa Secord is a Pastoral Associate at St. Agnes Parish, Louisville, Kentucky.

 

Scripture:

Micah 7:14-15, 18-20
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Reflection:

 

God Never Tires of Loving and Forgiving

This parable of the prodigal son is a textbook prototype for our Jubilee Year of Mercy. However, sometimes we seem to prefer a stingy or miserly God… at least for other people! We might call this the “elder son syndrome” when we get resentful that God extends mercy and compassion to all!

I remember preaching a homily at a prominent parish one Sunday morning; the Gospel was the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1ff.  The body language of some folks in the pews betrayed their feelings of resentment at the Gospel moral. Remember? They agree upon a certain wage and go off to work in the vineyard. The owner returns several times throughout the day to procure additional workers, then the end of the work day comes. They all line up for their pay, and when those who were hired last got the “agreed upon” wage, those who had labored in the hot sun all day thought surely they would receive a bonus. They receive the agreed-upon wage, and soon begin grumbling. The owner simply replies, “Can I not pay workers what I wish? Are you upset because I am generous?”

Several times in the Gospel Jesus says things like, “God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5) Why should we find fault when God is generous or merciful? Perhaps today is a good time to ponder the many times in the Gospels that we experience God lavishing us with God’s bounteous gifts? Baskets of leftovers after the feeding of the multitude, or the many gallons of wine at the wedding feast of Cana? Our God is an “all-too-much” God, who lavishes us with favor, unconditional love. And if the word “prodigal” means wasteful, maybe it is not so much the younger son who is prodigal, but the father who wastes his love on sons who are not mature enough to respond in an adult, loving way. Yet, our God never tires of loving and forgiving! Never.

Fr. Jack Conley, C.P. is the director of the Office of Mission Effectiveness.  He is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Memorial of the Chair of Peter

Scripture:

1 Peter 5:1-4
Mathew 16:13-19

Reflection:

Feast of the Chair of St. Peter?  Really?  May I please have some other feast to think about?  Even an ordinary day in Lent will do!!!  What should I say after I describe four legs, a seat and a back?  We don’t even know what materials were used to build the chair.

On second thought – perhaps we do.

One commentator reminds us that in ancient Rome, families remembered their dead at a feast in late February by placing an empty chair at the feast.  Since the early Christians did not know the actual date of Peter’s death, they placed a chair for him at the table when they celebrated this Roman feast.  They took over and made the Roman practice a Christian one.  For them, the chair came to symbolize the authority of Peter and his successors and the doctrines they handed on to the followers.  This was the first of several elements which, when combined, were used to build the chair of Peter.

A more fundamental element was the person of Peter himself.  He was the leader Jesus Himself chose to tend the initial flock of followers.  Jesus chose him because of his strengths and  abilities as well as  because of his weaknesses.  Jesus saw beyond Peter’s flaws and understood that Peter’s mistakes would make Peter a more understanding, more forgiving, more compassionate shepherd of the flock who were so very human themselves.    We sense this very keenly in Peter’s first letter which we read today.  Peter offers his assistant shepherds advice gained by experience.  He tells them to tend the flock by example rather than by power, always remembering that the Risen Lord Jesus is the Chief Shepherd and the rest of us are his disciples.  Always merge your own mind and heart with that of the Lord and you will never  provide false direction.  When celebrating the chair of Peter,  we are called to reflect on our first shepherd himself as a main component in the construction of the chair.

A third essential ingredient in manufacturing this special chair flows from the exchange between Jesus and Peter in our gospel passage today.   How is it that Peter knows that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God ?   I would suggest that it flowed from Peter’s observation of Jesus, from his listening to the teachings of Jesus, from his choosing to live his life in imitation of Jesus over these several years of discipleship.  In all of this, Peter’s mind and heart had been tilled and fertilized by the Holy Spirit preparing him for that moment when it would all make sense – You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  It was living the life of a disciple that made this all possible.  This is the seed bed of Peter’s exhortation to lead by example rather than commands.  It is the living of the faith life that speaks most eloquently of the Gospel of Jesus.  If we live with each other and we deal with the problems of our lives reflecting the mind and heart of the Lord Jesus, then we faithfully provide direction, encouragement and fertile ground for the expansion of the Kingdom in this world.

Components in the construction of the Chair of Peter must, then,  include at least these three elements :  remembering and honoring the authority and doctrine vested in Peter and handed on by him to the flock; remembering and honoring the person of Peter himself who shepherded in all humility by example; remembering and honoring the way of life discovered and lived by Peter as disciple of the Lord Jesus.   You or others may add other elements but these three give meaning to the Feast of the Chair of Peter for me.  The Chair was divinely and well built and has lasted more than two thousand years.  A great gift.

 

Fr. Richard Burke, CP, is a member of St. Paul of the Cross Province.  He lives at St. Ann’s Monastery in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Second Sunday of Lent

Scripture:

Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 9:28b-36

Reflection:

Righteousness of Faith

 “Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Gen 15:6 this year we are urged by the Pope and bishops to re-discover our faith.  Faith is that beautiful gift of God to us that makes Jesus visible to us as He was transformed before the apostles.   A few years ago I visited Mammoth cave and saw piles of cane sticks that people used for torches 4000 years ago.  In the utter blackness of a cave of some 600 miles there is no way of finding one’s way without these lights.   Faith is the torch by which we see a transfigured Christ in the world today.

Without faith we can never embrace the living Christ.   In the gospels countless people touched Jesus to be healed.   But we can never approach Him without the gift of faith.  Faith is our eyes and hands by which we encounter Christ.   Without this living and precious gift the wisest and most talented people of the world missed the most amazing personality who walked the face of the earth.   Without faith, the news media has not a clue of the amazing presence of Christ.  Without this light  massive numbers of our American society are going down the drain in drugs, broken marriages, financial swindles, and mass killings.

Abraham’s faith made him righteous.  The erosion of faith has left unimaginable moral damage to our modern world.  As an active missionary for 42 years I hear case after case of tragedies that happen to family members who have abandoned their Catholic faith.   To me the biggest lie of our secular age is that we can achieve happiness and fulfillment without Christ.  If faith made Abraham righteous, it is no wonder that its forfeiture causes a trail of heartbreaks and disasters to so many people that we and God love!

 

Fr. Bob Weiss, C.P. preaches Parish Missions and is a member of the Passionist Community in Louisville, Kentucky.